PrimeBase XT (PBXT) is a transactional storage engine for MySQL which can be loaded dynamically by the pluggable storage engine API of MySQL 5.1. It has been designed for modern, web-based, high concurrency environments. Full MVCC (multi-version concurrency control) support and a unique "write-once" strategy make PBXT particularly effective under heavy update loads.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

I was standing with Giuseppe Maxia waiting to go into this mornings keynote when a smartly dressed man approached Giuseppe to congratulate him. The reason was that Giuseppe had won an award the day before for service to the MySQL community. So Giuseppe introduced the guy as Marten (the rest of the name I don't get, and he was not wearing a name tag).

Marten seemed to recognize my name and asked if I was a frequent visitor to the conferences. I said, "no, I am the PBXT guy". Thats when he realized why he had heard my name.

So then we chatted a bit, and he asked me how difficult it had been to write the engine, how long it had taken me and what my engine can do well. I said I was more concerned about what it could not do so well then what it could do well, but then I told him what was good in my performance tests, etc.

A little later Giuseppe and I moved into the hall for the keynote. The CEO was introduced and I started thinking, hey, isn't this the guy I just spoke to.

Well, I soon realized it was Mårten Mickos the CEO of MySQL whom I had just spoken to because he included a few details of our conversation in his keynote!

When discussing innovation in the MySQL community, this is what he said (at the risk of being immodest):

"I just spoke to the guy that programmed the PBXT engine: He developed the engine in the 6 months. I thought we had hired all the best database guys. Well there are still a lot of very clever people out there in the community."

(The last sentence is very true, of course).

And later he mentioned that PBXT is particularly good at handling variable length records.

Then on the slide which listed the storage engines: Falcon (by MySQL themselves), Solid (new partner) and InnoDB (new partner Oracle), he mentioned PBXT again, even though it was not on the slide.

So this is very encouraging because, with Falcon, Solid and InnoDB around, in any other conventional company PBXT would be sidelined. I know this from experience. This is because Falcon, Solid and InnoDB are built on existing code developed by well established companies.

So why are things different with MySQL. Because the community is extremely important to MySQL! I mean, just think about it: MySQL was build by the community!